Alejandra Barrientos

San Lorenzo Valley H.S., Felton, CA

Oct 1, 2000

"In eighth grade my best friend bullied me into doing cross country—I made varsity, but I wasn't really trying that hard." That was the rather inauspicious start of Alejandra Barrientos’ running career. Since then she has obviously started trying harder—in April she anchored her school to a national record in the distance medley at the Penn Relays.

Alejandra remained quite nonchalant with respect to running until her sophomore year in high school, when her team got a new coach, Rob Collins, who saw her potential and inspired her to work harder. "To my surprise, I started winning all these races."

It seems she has not slowed down since. In the past year she has won the 1600m at Arcadia and the 3,000m at the Stanford Invite. These victories may seem surprising given the fact that she typically runs approximately 30 miles a week. For a speed workout she runs 16 x 400 at 70 seconds each. Her longest runs are seven to eight miles and those are done "not very often."

Perhaps her success may be in part attributed to the fact that she is so in love with running. Alejandra believes that running has "made me a better person. Ever since I started running, everything in my life has started improving," she says.

One very positive effect of her running is her relationship with her sister. "It has brought us closer together," says Alejandra, noting that Raquel ran the lead off leg on the national record DMR. In fact, Alejandra looks forward to spending one more year of high school with her sister. She says she knows her sister has not reached her full potential yet, but looks forward to watching her improve over the next year.

Unfortunately, Alejandra's outdoor season was cut short by a stress fracture, but she feels that a relaxed summer of cross-training such as biking and pool running will make her more ready than ever to begin competing once again in the fall. Even the curtailed campaign could not keep her from being ranked number two in the country in the 1500m and 3,000m and first in the two mile.

Alejandra is looking beyond her senior year in high school, and when asked what colleges she may be considering she definitively states "UCLA." When asked about running goals she modestly states "to break the national record in the mile and run in the Olympics in 2004."

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